Happy holydays, and how pathetic is that truly despicable, deplorable and gutless lickspittle lackey ACMA?

 

So the time has finally arrived and the pond is heading off into the Victorian wilderness, where even Elon's magical connectivity is but a dream, and so the pond will be laying off the herpetological studies until the new year ...

Time then to thank and offer season's greetings to the regulars, and occasional irregulars, who offer comments on the daily offerings and now are the only reason the pond bothers with its clipping service ...

You know who you are, and whether you fancy the greetings are for Saturnalia or the Xian silly season, the pond wishes you all the best for happy holydays, or a merry Xmas, or whatever ... (and remember an X is a very Xian way of doing things ... as you can read at Vox here).

The pond, in its dreaming and delusion, had hoped for some fantastic reptile outing this day, with a column that might offer reptile folly well into the new year. You know, a top notch piece of climate science denialism or even just a jolly good groaning. 

Sadly, our Henry, if he bothers, will be a day late, and the pond will never know if the pond's dream was just a day out of reach ...

Speaking of Elon, the pond should note a great portrait by the immortal Rowe ...

And he also offered a splendid picture of Mr Potty Mouth, scribbling away on behalf of Chairman Rupert...

So that's the last the pond need make any mention of that ...

As for that dream reptile column, among those who have gone missing, the pond should mention it's not just the Oreo, but also Lloydie of the Amazon, who took a powder back in late November and hasn't been heard of since. 

This was his last outing ... or at least the beginning of it ...

And then he was gone ... and few knew, and even fewer cared ...

And what of this day's reptile offerings? Well at the top of the digital page came this ...

And all simplistic "here no conflict of interest" Simon's report of the bleeding obvious is good for is a Moir ...

Why a cartoon start to the pond's last note for the year? 

Well look at this day's offerings ...

The tedious Trinca pretending that the reptiles are on a long trek, when in reality it's just on a long march through the institutions, and black bashing is the current reptile ritual ...

The only reptile of long standing at work during the holyday season has been Dame Slap, out and about on her usual obsessions in the last few days, with black bashing and the Higgins matter all she writes about...

She was at it again today, there in the middle of the reptile triptych of terror ...

The pond has banned Dame Slap, ever since she ignored the judge's request to shut up about the trial, and because her black bashing has become almost Clarkson tedious, and the only consolation came with the sight of that MAGA cap wearer posturing and preening next to her one-time love, that supreme con artist and snake oil salesman, and as it eventually turned out, tax dodger nonpareil...

The pond can never forget or forgive Dame Slap for celebrating that con artist, even as ...

“Tonight we learned the IRS failed to follow the law and did not audit donald trump for years,” said one of the committee members, Rep. Bill Pascrell, Jr. (D-NJ), on Twitter. “Oh yeah and trump was lying when he said he was under audit.”

And ...

Trump’s federal income tax payments dropped to absolute zilch in his final year as president, according to a report from the House Joint Committee on Taxation released Tuesday evening. In 2018 and 2019, the former president paid $1.1 million in federal income tax, but that dropped to $0 in 2020, according to the report released after the committee finally obtained six years worth of tax returns. Trump allegedly finagled his way out of his tax bracket by claiming massive annual losses on properties, as high as $32 million in both 2015 and 2016, effectively zeroing out his tax liabilities despite reporting millions in taxable income. (Beast)

What a contemptible scribbler she was ... and is ...

But the pond must fill the final column with something, it can't go fully Seinfeldian, even though each day with the reptiles feels like a nothingburger, and so the pond can at least note that at the top of the digital page the lizard Oz editorialist strutted and crowed ...

How pathetic is that truly despicable, deplorable and gutless lickspittle lackey ACMA?

The pond rarely watches the ABC, but the one time it gathered its metaphorical balls together, and struck back at the endless abuse offered up by the reptiles on a daily basis, ACMA decided to hand whatever constituted its balls to Chairman Rupert ...

There's a full report on the report in The Graudian here, wherein the pandering Nerida O'Loughlin managed to find a couple of omissions, when even blind Freddy knows that Faux Noise has been full of orange Jeebus bullshit for the past five years ...

A couple of tedious nitpicks and you get the lizard Oz editorialist gloating in a most unseemly way ...

Note bene how those couple of nitpicks have been transformed by the art of the lizard Oz editorialist into falling "far short of the ABC's code" ...

If that's far, the pond has a lizard Oz code to sell you ...

"Withering"? The day that ACMA is withering, the pond will read Withering Heights again ...

Meanwhile, the lizard Oz falls short in laughable ways on a daily basis, and that pathetic lickspittle lackey ACMA never bothers to offer a spanking, even with a warm lettuce leaf, and if it did, what then?

Nothing, it's a toothless tiger, a pathetic straw dog, who does absolutely nothing about the notorious cavortings on Sky After Dark, until the drunken carry-ons get so problematic there and at the lizard Oz, that even the reptiles feel the need to do something about them ...

It turns out that ACMA is on the side of that notorious drunk Jeanine Pirro and that fawning piece of vile toadyism, Sean Hannity, and a piece of window dressing put out by Faux Noise, while that network kept on doing what it's always done, playing along with the mango Mussolini, and whenever challenged offering a display of hurt feelings and outraged, righteous indignation ...

But if you note the bleeding obvious, you get a technical ACMA spanking ... and instead of a couple of nitpicks, by the magic of the lizard Oz editorialist's art, "the failings identified by ACMA were manifold and basic".

Will ACMA do anything about that wilful, gobsmacking misrepresentation of its findings? 

Of course they won't ... that's the way of the lickspittle lackey, full of humbug, and what's worse, slowly delivered humbug and in such small portions ...

Beyond the valley of the pathetic, with a couple of nitpicks turned into a grand flourish, "this is how the ABC usually does things, with poor journalism."

That's usually called projection, but will that kind of blatant propaganda and basic distortion be noted by ACMA? 

Will they pick up their warm lettuce leaf? Of course not ... but here, have an infallible Pope from yesterday, because the former chairman is now on the job ...

And so to another lizard Oz offering, and the pond only does so with great reluctance, because the pond has studiously ignored the matter, first when it was before the courts and now because it's the subject of an inquiry ...

Not so the reptiles who have blathered on every day in the manner of a Clarkson hurling excrement into the void ... and the pond only reproduces this to note a great irony, of the kind that seems to elude ACMA on a daily basis ...

You see? The lizard Oz editorialist recycling Dame Slap, who has been relentlessly attempting to interfere in the matter since the day charges were first laid, which leads to the greatest bit of nonsense imaginable in the final lizard Oz editorialist gobbet ...

Without a blink of the shameless eye, without a nod to its own wickedness, without a hint that the reptiles might be doing a Godiva, there it is ... after the many, manifold and manifest attempts by Dame Slap to put her thumb on the scales and tilt the system - together with other reptiles of the meretricious Merritt kind - you get that cat that ate the cream line "if the inquiry is to stem the trend towards political and media interference in the justice system ..."

It'd be vastly comic if the implications weren't so tragic, given the trend in the lizard Oz towards media interference in the justice system, and the pond feels well shod of the reptiles until the new year ...

In the meantime, remember not to over-indulge in Saturnalia, though a regular diet of reptiles might provoke the desire ...

Finally, as well as a big thank you to all the correspondents who have helped the pond with links, advice, sound commentary that the pond is now too lazy to supply, and good humour, with lashings of sly irony, the pond would also like to thank the cartoonists who have done their very best to make the pond feel a little happier as the pond endures its miserable reptile studies, without any prospect of scoring a B.A. (reptiliano), even from the mango Mussolini's mail order university ...

They know who they are, and apologies to their publishers, though the pond only offers its homages with a reminder that the supporters of fine cartoonists deserve support ...

Now come on down, infallible Pope, for the last time this year ...

In which the pond enters the age of lead with the Bro, the Killer and "Ned", who didn't all walk into a pub together ...

 

This is the pond's penultimate post for the year, though rather than thinking of silver, the pond should probably think of an age of lead.

What with the Clarkson carry on and the cat fight between Boebert and MTG, the entertainment component has fallen off a cliff into a pile of excrement.

The pond had done its required reading, but sad to say, the scene at the lizard Oz was dismal, with the reptiles naturally compelled and horrified by the appointment of former chairman Rudd, having thought they'd long ago got rid of the pesky varmint ... and yet there he was shaking hands with a Bush at the top of the digital page ...

The pond did an inward groan, not at the ruddy pun,  nor even the 'secret sweetheart deal',  what with the Dominator and Albo being such sweethearts, but at the sight of "Ned". 

Not a natter to ruin the penultimate post, but when the pond looked down below the fold at the comments section, things got even worse ...

Dame Slap still blathering about the Voice? Again? Yes, yet again! So much anal retentive, obsessive compulsive behaviour ...

That earned Slap a red card yet again, and for the rest, there was yet more Kev, with the minor Milner staying loyal, as toads are wont to do, brother Stewie offering a gamble for the ages, and the Killer hedging his bets ...

The pond looked a little further and found a recycled bit of Gerard Baker which hadn't aged well ...

Maoists? Jack Dorsey is a Maoist? Parag Agrawal a Maoist?

It's reassuring to be reminded that enormous stupidity and idle abuse remains the reptile go to mode ...

As for the culture wars, they seem to have come at a cost, which Baker was probably happy about because it was nothing to do with him, though at one time the pond could remember when the reptiles most cared about profits. 

Not so, it seems, these days ... per Fortune ... per Yahoo ...

‘Time to end this nightmare’: Analyst Dan Ives says Elon Musk will likely step down from Twitter as company is on track to lose roughly $4 billion.

A broad bear market has taken the S&P 500 down over 20% this year, with high-growth tech stocks faring the worst as central banks worldwide raise interest rates to fight inflation.
Elon Musk’s Tesla is the perfect example. The EV giant’s shares have dropped more than 62% in 2022 amid fears that demand for vehicles may wane as rising interest rates dampen global economic growth.And Tesla has been dealing with another “overhang” over the past year as well—Musk’s decision to buy Twitter for $44 billion and sell roughly $40 billion of Tesla stock.
Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives believes the acquisition was the “most overpaid” in the history of the tech space, and he argues Musk is using Tesla to fund what could be $4 billion per year of “red ink” at Twitter.

Showing how to blow a fortune is a contribution to public discourse?

So that's what the reptiles call a bout of festive euphoria and blather about a manger, where Tesla stock owners might well end up ...

And then there was the obligatory Xian Xmas offering, though the war on Xmas this year has been astonishingly feeble.

This time the Xian decided to trade off on the universe, perhaps expecting to find heaven and hell somewhere near Jupiter's moons ...

It was all too tiresome and tedious, and so, jumping to the biblical chase, the pond could only be bothered with a closing gobbet, wherein the canny Xian didn't bother with much of the bible, but led with Tolkien ...

Desperate and truly pathetic stuff ... a universe unimagined at the time the bible was written, and a dose of Gamgee? 

Is that the best the Xians could do, with a bit of the Old Testament - that ancient font of bigotry and darkness - flung in at the very end, after a bit of Peter Jackson?

There was nothing for it but to turn to Killer ...

A correspondent had drawn the pond's attention to a Killer tweet, so the pond had hoped for some fireworks of a Killer kind ...

It was a false twit dawn ...

Why on earth was the Killer being so cautious in the matter of the Ruddster? It's very un-Killer like, and the reptiles seized on the chance to run a click-bait video ...

At least Killer has stayed loyal to the mango Mussolini, and Ron DeSanctimonious, and no doubt will applaud if the GOP manage to hand Vlad the Terrible a victory, as a way of incentivising Xi in relation to Taiwan ...

But still the pond couldn't understand why Killer was being so circumspect. Was there no upside?

Killer had to turn to a ranting Prof to deliver the Ruddster a broadside, all 32 guns blazing way back in 2016? 

Feeble stuff, as feeble as a Xian rabbiting on about Lord of the Rings at Xmas time ... and so the pond turned to the bromancer for a final word on the matter ... only to discover he was just as dismal ...

It was so ambivalent that the reptiles decided to stuff in a couple of click bait videos, as a kind of seafood extender ...

And after that interminable yammering, it was time for a conclusion as tepid as the water into which you might dunk a Tolkien character's elbow ...

Unlikely to be boring? Is that the best the reptiles can do? No wonder the pond turned to the immortal Rowe for a little leavening humour ...

After that, there was nothing for it but a slide into stupefaction, long before the Xmas drinks get passed around ...

Sheesh, not more blather about Gough. Poor old "Ned", trapped in senility and the endless desire to repeat himself, and yet even the pond couldn't help noticing that a year had gone by ...

Dear sweet long absent lord, already swept from the pond's mind, yet still ancient, antique "Ned" is carrying on about the Gough years like some ancient mariner stopping one of three aged readers still in the "Ned" demographic and able to afford the shekels the chairman demands for these trips down memory lane...

Oh the good old days, and the pond does miss them ... the entire SovCit crew ...

Well if "Ned" can blather on about Gough, why can't the pond remember the great days when all was good?

The pond understand's "Ned's" desire to seek refuge in the distant past ... better than looking back just a little bit in time ...

Was that only December 2021? How time flies, and so the pond finally comes to a final "Ned" gobbet ... a Jeremiah preaching bullfrogs and jeremiads and yearning for an apocalypse ...

One thing's certain. If Albanese is prudent, he will ignore the tedious yammerings of a boring old fart, who should long ago have been pensioned off, rather than offering his pompous, portentous musings on aged events ...

The pond would like to have ended with a fresh Pope, but in lieu, this ancient memory of Xmas's past will have to do ...

And here's a Wilcox, about all that needs to be said on the matter that still obsesses Dame Slap ...

In which the pond enters the bronze age with the bromancer and a good groan, and after that silver, gold and salad days ahead ...

 

The pond has now entered the bronze medal stage of its Xmas posting season, and can but hope that there will be some stirring reptile to hand on Thursday to help it lift the gold medal day proudly to a new high in the last post before the silly season begins...

That said, the true comedy has shifted elsewhere, with the pond observing the huddled masses of lovers of the lover of Nazis in their lover of Nazi cars, looking very sheepish as they cluster together at their chargers ...

*

(* actual pond field observation of lovers of Nazis in their lover of Nazis cars)

But then they purchased their vehicles to do the right thing by a visionary, only to be confronted by the latest spectacle of relentless narcissism, American and mango Mussolini style ...

(Beast here)

However it plays out, the pond is delighted that a new style of company management has been reinvented, or rediscovered, and commends it to the reptiles and to their chairman ...

Meanwhile, with the war on Xmas a definite fizzer, and an abject disappointment this year, the reptiles have turned their gimlet eye on the war on Australia day, with both the bromancer and the lizard Oz to the fore ...

... though the pond settled for the bromancer as being more than enough in one day, even if blather about 'national identity' from an American-owned company could have been richly fulfilling...

Ah the scourge of identity politics ... the relentless, unedifying spectacle of identity politics. If you want a reptile to rant on endlessly about identity politics, the bromancer is your man, and he will reliably rail at the wretched way womyn want to ruin everything ... and never mind that importuning Sharma begging to be given another chance ...

If he'd only don a frock, everything would be right, but back to identity politics, and the pond must remind gentle readers that a mention of Irish Australian extraction isn't identity politics, it's a reaffirmation of all that's best in Ireland, as seen in the splendid The Banshees of Inisherin ...

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing.

The pond was taught to hate Oliver Cromwell, but please, don't call it identity politics (and was unnerved to see exactly the same portrait of the bleeding heart of Jesus in Ireland in 1923 as graced the pond's grandparents' wall decades later, but please no identity politics) ...

Ah invasion day. But let's face it, those bloody pesky, difficult, uppity blacks were a disorganised bunch, a pathetic rabble, and it was pure bloody luck that they scored a bunch of Pommie bastards, rather than the French, or the Dutch, or even at a pinch, the Portuguese or the Spanish ... and now they have a chance to fling a shekel at chairman Rupert for their free media, and where's the gratitude?

All they want is to ruin the unification of the country under chairman Rupert's most excellent leadership, an American company completely capable of understanding and moulding and shaping the Australian identity, whatever that is, and instead somehow manage to identify with the wretched Irish: Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing.

Please allow the man free of identity politics - though he writes as an Irish-Australian - to explain just how lucky the bloody blacks, useless and disorganised, a motley crew incapable of a dinkum war, were ...

Is anyone else counting the number of times the bromancer has mentioned "identity politics"? Truth to tell the pond, rather like Dirty Harry, has lost count, but could sense the spittle spraying on to the keyboard each time the bromancer pounded out the words ...

We all know where identity politics lead ... why even dictionaries have been rooned ...

Bloody womyn, bloody blacks, it's enough to make a dinkum Irish Australian Catholic's hair curl, though the pond uses those terms without any sense of implied identity politics ...

And now for those counting, a chance to add to the tally of mentions ...

Indeed, indeed, the ruination of a nation through identity politics, a deeply emotional disorder, and the bromancer scribbles that through the lens of hysteria, a public display of emotion and an endless reptile bickering over meaningless symbolism, as if it were somehow impossible to become an Australian citizen on any other day of the year ... not even Anzac Day, which in the old days used to be the one day of the year for jingoistic tub thumpers of the bromancer kind ...

And now for the usual serve of Dame Groan, not that there's anything new, it's just that each serve of parritch should be the same lump of groaning oats ... and here the pond should mention that it will shortly be off to Gippsland, and there has been tremendous news for the bigots of the deep south and the local groaners, as can be read in the ABC's South Gippsland removed from offshore wind zone after community concerns ... (and there's a bonus snap of satanic windmills).

Waratah Bay resident Robert Boelen co-founded community organisation Responsible Renewables with to push against wind turbines in waters near South Gippsland.

He had been calling for wind turbines to be placed further away from the shore than the initially-proposed 6 kilometres.

He said the outcome exceeded his expectations.

And with that accomplished, it's on with the Groaning and the always present yearning for gas, and even clean, dinkum, innocent sweet Oz coal ...

First the pond must compliment the lizard Oz pictorial department on that picture of natural gas burning and helping to warm the atmosphere, it's been unseasonably chilly of late and every bit helps, and how much better to have a positive image than the admittedly terrifying sight of satanic windmills or even an array of solar panels polluting the landscape and offending the eye ...

As for the rest of it, it's familiar turf, and Dame Groan remains the child of Santos, and some might remember some other dialogue in that film, what with it being the usual shite ...

Colm Doherty: I was too harsh yesterday.

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Yesterday, he says! I know well you was too harsh yesterday.

Colm Doherty: I just... I just have this tremendous sense of time slipping away on me, Padraic. And I think I need to spend the time I have left thinking and composing. Just trying not to listen to any more of the dull things you have to say for yourself, or the Groaner has to scribble. But I am sorry about it. I am, like.

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Are you dying?

Colm Doherty: No, I'm not dying.

Pádraic Súilleabháin: But then you have loads of time.

Colm Doherty: For chatting?

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Aye.

Colm Doherty: For aimless chatting about the wonders of Oz gas?

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Not for aimless chatting. For good, normal chatting in the Groan way about the wonders of Oz gas ...

Colm Doherty: So we'll keep aimlessly chatting and my life will keep on dwindling. And in 12 years, I'll die with nothin' to show for it, bar the chats I've had with a limited man, is that it? Or feckless limited groaning woman, come to think of it, about the wonders of Oz gas, is that it?

Pádraic Súilleabháin: I said, "not aimless chatting" I said "Good, normal chatting." And there's much to chat about when it comes to the wonders of Oz gas ...

Colm Doherty: The other night, two hours, you spent talking to me about the things you found in your little donkey's shite that day. Two hours, Padraic. I timed it.

Pádraic Súilleabháin: Well it wasn't me little donkey's shite, was it? It was me pony's shite. Which shows how much you were listenin'.

Colm Doherty: None of it helps me. Do you understand? None of it helps me.

Pádraic Súilleabháin: [after Colm leaves] We'll just talk about something else, then! Perhaps read a column by Dame Groan together ...

And indeed we can Pádraic, indeed we can ...

Truth to tell, Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing, and when it comes to a love of fossil fuels and fucking the planet in so many ways, that's a really good thing ...

You won't find the Groaner being caught out by a long hop or a full toss ...

See how she plays a straight bat ... and it could all be over in two days ...

And thar she blows, as she always does, that yearning for dear sweet innocent dinkum Oz coal, so cruelly treated, given such a bungled exit, when it might have been around for years to come, helping the country and the planet.

Why, to be sure, there's even talk of blackouts, and how the reptiles love to talk of blackouts and vengeful righteous gods smiting and smoting the pagans for their love of false gods, abandoning the worship of black gold ... and don't think cheap gas is gunna save ya, 'cause it won't, so there ...

Oh there'll come a time when they'll suffer and suffer mightily and a catastrophic darkness will fall upon the land ... but in the meantime, a last quick gobbet to go ...

Ah, economics, the ghastly, somewhat dismal, science, with its abysmal groaners, and there was an infallible Pope out and about today celebrating its arcane mysteries ...

And as for the planet?

“We are still moving in the wrong direction,” he said on Monday. “The 1.5C goal is gasping for breath. National climate plans are falling woefully short. And yet we are not retreating, we are fighting back.”

He added: “The invitation [to the summit] is open. But the price of entry is non-negotiable – serious new climate action that will move the needle forward. It will be a no-nonsense summit. No exceptions. There will be no room for backsliders, greenwashers, blame-shifters or repackaging of announcements of previous years.”

Guterres has become increasingly outspoken about the climate emergency, and the summit will put further pressure on countries to act.

A series of reports in October laid bare how close the planet is to irreversible climate catastrophe. Carbon emissions must fall by half by 2030 to have an even chance of limiting global heating to the internationally agreed 1.5C limit. But emissions in 2022 will set a record high. (Graudian)

And when anybody asks the Groaner what she did for the planet, she can hold her head high, and proudly say she helped gas it, if only to put it out of its misery ...

And so to finish with the bromancer, who has been out and about this day, plugging the gaps in the lizard Oz's shrinking commentariat ...

It isn't as rich as the bromancer's first fruity polemic, and the pond only mentions it because it chimes in with a cartoon by the immortal Rowe which can thereby serve as an on topic closer.

The pond notes that the bromancer doesn't once mention identity politics, and even goes muted when it comes to the question of all-out war with China in the new year, what with the war by Xmas now a little too close to get the missiles into the air ... but to be fair, he does allow the odd ominous threat to hover in the air, and produce a chilling effect ...

In bromancer speak, that's the "playing nice syndrome", which everyone knows is far worse than all-out war in the new year ...

You can't trust a scorpion or a dragon to be nice. Better a pre-emptive strike to put a billion odd people in their place, and remind them that the Anzac spirit never dies in armchair warriors ...

Indeed, indeed, of course a wet of the simplistic Simon would get it all wrong ...

... and the bromancer might yet return to harping about war with China by Australia Day, if only all those wretches indulging in identity politics would just get out of the way ... for to be sure to be sure,  Some things there's no moving on from. And I think that's a good thing ...

And so to end with an immortal Rowe, as the pond often does, and now with only two days and hopefully a silver and a gold after this bronze day has finished ...